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It begins with a message delivered from Lord Yupa himself.
The gesture surprises Kushana. She would understand if, after everything, the people of the Valley of the Wind hate her, hate her people, hate everything they stand for. She would understand if they wanted nothing to do with her. But not this, a message delivered from their most respected warrior for the shamed princess cast aside.
She doesn't recognize the handwriting. It is neat and somewhat delicate, like the person doesn't write often, but puts care and thought into every word.
Kushana -
Meet me here at sunset in three days. There is something I want to show you.
- Nausicaä
Attached is a map, carefully hand drawn with meticulous detail, of the toxic forest between their lands. A point on the map is marked as the destination of which Nausicaä speaks. On the bottom of the map, in the same handwriting, are the words: "Go down."
***
Kushana doesn't know why she decides to go along with it. What does she have to gain, really? The Valley has won, her people are recovering, there is nothing left to say. But she cannot help but be intrigued. Why would Nausicaä summon her? What reason could the girl have to meet the one who spited her? How can she be what she is - so selfless, so giving, so self-sacrificing in a frightening and cruel world? Why does she defend the forest and the Ohmu who clearly hate humanity?
And more than anything else - why do those disturbing properties, why does that bizarre reversal of everything a person should be - make her so attractive?
***
She arrives at the forest floor. Her mask is heavy and uncomfortable; she can feel the warmth and dampness of every breath, and it unnerves her. It is necessary - she knows it is necessary, she knows she will die without it - but she still hates how it confines her. She is restricted enough, being a woman, and one with only one good arm besides, to take any pleasure in the added restrictions of the barrier between her and the spores.
For a while she sees nothing - only poisoned trees and shimmering spores, as far as the eye can see. The place disgusts her. Why here, Nausicaä? Of all the places in this wide world, why here?
She finally notices the hole in the ground, just barely large enough to fit through. A long rope, knotted at regular intervals, is tied to a post near her feet, going into the hole and hanging downwards. Is this what she meant by "go down"? She peers down into it, unsure how to proceed.
Nausicaä is below, with her mask off, atop a dune of sand. The sand looks fresh and strangely clear, shimmering and twinkling, refracting the light from the setting sun pouring through the hole. She is still wearing the blue tunic from the incident with the Ohmu - did the blood never wash off? - and she is holding the insect charm in her hand.
"Come down! It's safe!" Her voice is clear and strong.
She speaks to me like I'm one of the insects she charms. What does she think I am? I am a person, not some animal to be tamed and coddled! She may be a princess - she may even be the one who saved my life - but she certainly does not have the right to treat me this way!
Despite this, Kushana drops down anyway. She's not sure why she does. Maybe because it is something new and exciting. Maybe she does respect Nausicaä, in her own way. Maybe it's the look in her eyes, delighted and strange and...intimate, like this is something just for her. It's as if Nausicaä, as open and as generous and as kind as she makes herself out to be, would not share this with just anyone. This is, somehow, special.
It is like another world - gray and blue sand in gentle dunes as far as the eye can see. The canopy above is dark and foreboding, and Kushana can barely see the forest above it.
"Take off your mask."
Kushana is so caught up in observing that she is startled by Nausicaä's speaking. She turns to the girl - no, the woman. Her gray eyes are still as beautiful as ever, though now they always carry a hint of sorrow and exhaustion, expressing her world weariness for her. Now, they also look serious and pensive.
She is not treating me like an animal, even with how she treats animals.
The mask slips off; the air floods into Kushana's lungs, cold and fresh and above all clean. She can feel the change from the sticky, humid breaths she was taking on borrowed air to this.
"I - I can breathe here. But we're -"
"In the forest, yes. Or rather, underneath it. This is what the forest is doing. This is what the Ohmu are truly protecting." Nausicaä bends down to scoop up a handful of sand. It glimmers in her cupped palm. "The trees and the insects absorb the poison all their lives. When they die, they eventually become rock, then this. Someday, the forest will die, leaving nothing but this pure new world beneath it."
"Why show me this?"
"Because you should know. You should know why I opposed you, you should know why I defended the Ohmu, why I would sacrifice for them. I just want to see the world regenerate."
"It probably will not happen in our lifetimes, or even our children's lifetimes, or our children's children's."
"No, you are right." She sighed. "But it is still important that it happen, even if I am forgotten by the time it does."
"That's not the only reason I'm here, is it." Kushana takes a deep breath - a deep breath in the middle of the poisoned forest, who would have thought - and studies Nausicaä's features again. There is the slightest shift in her demeanor - a tiny change in her eyes, in the movement of her lips, in the color of her cheeks, in her stance, in her breath.
"You are right. I should know better than to put anything past you." Nausicaä tilts her head, just enough to be clearly looking at something that isn't Kushana. "I want to learn from you. I want to learn how to improve the lives of my people, to defend them better, to tend to them. I want to learn how to deal with outsiders, with those not from the Valley, to negotiate and compromise. And I want to know you better."
"Hmm?" The last one takes her by surprise.
"I want to understand how you are so strong in the face of so much hatred. I want to learn how to face the world without fear and defend myself from any who doubt me. You are so proud and so unflinching."
I am not actually strong or proud. I am a weakling who doesn't know any other life. Kushana thinks these things, and yet she cannot help but want. To want to be the person who can answer these questions. To want to be the person Nausicaä thinks she is. To learn from this strange girl and to teach her and to be a part of her life, one way or another.
She takes her hand. It is soft but strong, a hand that knows both how to wield a blade and to tend to new, delicate growths. "Then let us begin, Nausicaä."